I have some news about the space plan of China to post here.

[divine_vessel]

Maybe the president election have drawn most of the attention.And the mars mission is on going.Two month after president Bush announced to sent men back to moon,there is still no searious plan to evoke the project.
But the first phase of my country's moon exploration project is becaming clear now.
China wants to launch a satellite to orbit the moon by December of 2006,according to Xinhua News Agency.This project has been named Chang'e(嫦娥)project,after a legendary goddess who flew to the moon.the lunar satellite has been named Chang'e I.
The satellite will consist of satellite platform and payload,which will base on Dongfanghong
3 satellite platform.
The satellite will collict images of the moon lunar surface,analyze the content of elements and materials,and probe the depth of the lunar soil and the space environment between the earth and the moon.

this picture show the satellite and it's path to the moon
ps :the Shenzhou VI manned spacecraft will launch next year,there are three astronauts on board.They'll stay in space for a week,this time.

[Evil Dr Ganymede]

Good, good . I have high hopes for China's space efforts - I'll be keeping an eye on this!

[mmarable]

This is excellent news. I think that China's space program hasn't gotten the attention it deserves.

I wish your country's program the best, and I hope that they are successfull.

[Mikeydude750]

Glad to see more countries are putting forth the effort to get back into space. The more, the merrier...

Ideally, it never would have stopped after the Apollo missions, but since it did, this is one step closer to humanity becoming a two(or more)-planet species.

[mike_mike1850@yahoo.com]

I think its wonderful your country is headed to the moon soon. Its to easy for America and Nasa to get off track with all our daily concerns. The one thing that may motavate us to stay on track is a little pride and a little friendly competion. As you get closer to landing men on the moon you can be sure that we well not want to be left out and will have some program in place to make sure we dont get left behind. I for one am a go to mars guy
http://www.marsnews.com/
http://www.marssociety.org/
http://www.polygonworlds.com
because the moon offers no atmosphere to protect greenhouse plants from radiation or 24 hour light cycle to grow plants/ food. It would require growing plants/ food under lights which requires tons of energy making it rather impractical. I remember one lunar astronaut writing that he found the moon to be a very dead place and very much wanted to hurry home. But the moon is close and warm so maybe man can find a way to make it a nice place to live one day in the future lead on!!